It'd an actual double Din head unit... Has a composite video in... Bust because it's a contained unit that runs an android OS I don't know if I could make it overlay and then disappear like the original?

After all this don't tell me it have been easier to hide the unit in the boot and run a composite video output and just mount a generic screen hooked up as original just so that it overlayed?

http://www.parrot.com/au/products/aster ... oid-smart/

Cheers,
Tim

damn, he beat me to it.

I was going to say.. the RGB outs are what you need to.. the screen isn't really necessary for heater controls etc anyway, its just there for notification purposes. (so you can see what is done.) If the RGB out still had the overlay in it.. then it's easy as... you could probably even trigger the relevant input via an output in the nav plug or something.

The alternative is to make a molded housing up, and put it up where the clock is now (up top) I've been looking at an old 5 inch Android tablet speculatively for a whole now, was thinking that a popup display where one puts the ignition on, and the lid flips up and the tablet slides upright under it would look pretty cool.. could be a clock, or using torque a bunch of gauges etc.. I have rolled my own android roms before so I thought about making a stripped down one that just had car stuff on it. You could wire in the screen you have, or if you want subtle. use a smaller LDC screen linked just to the RGB out of the ICC. that away it's always on the right input.

Awesome news on the RGBout.. I was about to pull my ICC apart to put RCA out's in.. (Haven't been able to find a copy of that doc that details the process, but I've seen the markings on the back of the control board and it's hard to see how I could get them wrong.) Now I can add RGB output cables too (I have a set here somewhere actually) then just get a small converter and wire it up to my sunvisor screen.. Mint.. I had planned to use USB -> video adaptor for that, but the refresh on those isn't great... this is better.

I had 8 ICC's of different types apart over the past 2 years.. single zone povo single disk.. single zone color with stacker, dual zone color with stacker, dual zone full size BW with stacker..

Learned some interesting things.

1. There is more than one brand or model of 6 disk stacker.. I had two 6 disk units out side by side and they had almost nothing in common, and the control boards were not compatible either (as one would expect)
2. full screen BW premium sound systems do not have the nav out.. I was peeved because I didnt' know the screen was BW when I bought it. I thought it was a color unit that had a perfectly unscratched screen.. live and learn.
3. I've been unable to find a working stacker to replace the dud one in my old single zone premium sound color screen unit. so I converted the car to dual zone instead.. The stacker in the single zone colour premium system is probably the model that is different from all the others. I am wondering if the stacker from a povo pack tiny screen 6 stacker ICC might work on the control board of the color/single zone unit.
4. Engine noise on the AUX in is horrid.. even with filtered power and a ground loop isolater I wasn't able to get rid of it.. it's better, but not perfect.. but since I have a fibre optic DTS surround Alpine system in my cupboard waiting to go in.. it's kind of a moot point as the RCA outs from the stacker will be going into the alpine and I'll use the Alpines various controllers to handle my inputs... (it does USB/ipod/ipod video and I have a carpoota for everything else.)

I found the exact screens the ICC uses on alibaba.. they are made by sharp and are dreadfully low res. but if they use a standard interface, I may well have to investigate that.

linky?

me too...

http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/L ... 31270.html

Was going to buy one... But now I am having bad viewing angle problems I don't want to venture that path...

frankieh you're way over my head...

I know the screen isn't a requirement... The circuit board is behind it but as it has the matrix for the control buttons interfaces through it... I like the screen and like having it up all the time as you can see the trip computer info and outside temp and it takes the guess work out of which position you have the vents set to with the scroll buttons... My ICC is shorter than standard to allow for the bottom screen... I specifically allowed for it to keep the original screen...

The rest of it I'm not sure where you were heading... Are you talking about adding the original icc video as an overlay in my android based headunit? Or what? Not quite following...

Here is the photos from my Garage thread of the unit... Not sure if you guys understand that this isn't just a screen... It's a full headunit wired into the top board of the ICC... Completely self contained in the ICC... Happy losing the pocket... Gives more space for the usb cables and connections as well as the BEM plugs and general access to the bottom of the ICC... Currently all fits and works great... Just bad viewing angle for the bottom LCD...









Cheers,
Tim

I wrote this about a year ago. http://www.fordmods.com/post1402883.html it has that same link you just gave Tim. I think we got a per unit price of 120.

Timm, I mean that if the control board has an RGB output as Data_mine says, it means you could output to any sized screen anywhere. Might even be an eink type screen you could get which would be perfect for your sun issues. With the RGB you'r screen choices open right up.

In fact alibaba sells tons of eink screen replacements.. So if one of them has the same interface as the sharp screen it gets even easier.

The RGB out is interesting, so it would be interesting to test it with a CGA-VGA converter. Probably still need an indepedent SYNC but maybe sync on green might work too?
Sounds like a worthy project.

Timm,
This is what you need man. Eink display and controller.

http://www.pervasivedisplays.com/products/74

This is what I used to get vga to my screen, we need the reverse to get it back to VGA. Bound to be something out there to do the job. http://m.ebay.com.au/itm?itemId=160713200861

And now I am all set to try it... Just bought this http://m.ebay.com.au/itm?itemId=261542747683 should get the output back into a VGA signal that I can use to replace the inbuilt screen with a higher res touchscreen. Then I can ditch the touchscreen overlay and move up to a 7 inch screen too.

Frankieh,

Excellent! Didn't know you could buy those eink screens... As I said video stuff at this level isn't my niche... Have you had much of a look at them? The controller requires an "spi" interface... I haven't seen that come up here yet so do you think the lcd board could drive this?

Are you meaning there is something funny with the vga output? Can just hook it to a 15pin hd sub d plug and hook a monitor up? Guessing not to require that pcb?

Tell you what if you were handy like Frank and going down the full car pc route, feeding into the nav port and replacing the crappy factory screen would be simple and neat by the sounds? Although Frank are you going to make your own overlay system and feed the vga out into your system?

Cheers,
Tim

Another though frankieh... Night driving... Won't be able to see it will I? Need one with a front light... And even still then, don't want it to be obnoxious...

Cheers,
Tim

most ereaders I've seen have an optional backlight.. you'd just hook that into the dash lights. easy peasy.

I didn't notice a VGA interface on that e-ink display and I'm not sure you can interface this tech in a standard way..

reading though the tech doc for that eink display.. it has an Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI).

There are tons of SPI interfaced LCD screens on ebay like this one:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/New-1-5-SPI-Interface-Color-STN-LCD-Module-Display-132X132-RGB-65K-Colors-/170860201440 There are a bunch of converters based on a blackfin processor that can convert between SPI and RGB.

Basically people are hooking up RaspberryPi's to this eink display, and since the PI is basically an ARM based linux PC with HDMI out, the changes are good that the hardware exists cheaply to hook up to an SPI display from any video source.

Some other interesting finds: http://www.adafruit.com/products/1596 higher end replacement for factory screen.. and it's touch enabled.. and cheap! but look at the controller it's plugged into.. it's an SPI to RBG controller for 800x480 displays. If I find a 7 inch version of that screen I'll be buying it.

There are a ton of cool pi video options on this page: http://www.adafruit.com/category/63

also a good site on driving eink displays:
http://essentialscrap.com/eink/

more docs on the subject.. http://www.eea.epson.com/portal/page/portal/home/products/integrated_circuits/Display%20Controllers/EPD%20Display%20Control%20Solution

It's actually a very good use for eink display as the refresh rate doesn't matter.

but to just get something happening easier, a standard BW LDC display that downsamples a colour RGB signal would be easier to get going, (but infinately cooler)

I'd love to get my hands on one of the new color, hi refresh eink displays.. that is going to revolutionise the industry when they iron out the bugs..

I would love to get an eink screen working... I can't find much googling RGB to SPI converter... Can you help with what I should be looking for? Although that Pervasive Displays mob don't list a back or front lit model so may need to look for something else and it may be a different input altogether...

Because the display output that is rgb is a heap of colours, how does the eink render this and will it work?

Doing some reading to find out what VGA and RGB and similar are... Is that RGB output straight VGA anyway? Doesn't need a converter? To have the Rout Gout and Bout pins and the common as well is top one a sync? That's all VGA is anyway isn't it? What am I missing?

Cheers,
Tim

I bought an adaptor now and when it arrives I will start experimenting. We will know more then.